


once more her tears held back

by mollivanders



Series: things you said prompt series [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-17 00:43:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11264448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: Saw leaves her just the way he found her – alone, in the dark, waiting for someone to come back. This time, when she realizes nobody is coming, the realization bursts her lungs and she is trying to catch her breath, eyes screwed shut, and shuts out every thought of what comes next.(She knows she’ll never see it coming.)Finally, her breaths come steady, her eyes open, and she grips the blaster at her side.There is no time for tears.(There never is.)





	once more her tears held back

**Author's Note:**

> Written for crazy-fruit as part of the ["things you said" prompt series](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com/post/159087489244/prompts-1-things-you-said-at-1-am-2-things). Prompt was for _things you said while I cried in your arms_.

Jyn is born in a refugee camp, a space filled with families torn from their homes, a space that had no space at all. Her first, vague memory is of that camp, but it’s a memory so thin and faded she never knows what it is. When she’s born, the midwife – no medical droids, not here – is worried because the baby doesn’t cry. She stares out at the world with wide eyes and when the midwife hits her back to make sure she’s breathing she coughs hard.

She doesn’t cry.

Her father swaddles her, wrapped in the cleanest linen they could find, and she stares.

(She never cries.)

+

When she is five years old, her mother wakes her in the middle of the night, a finger pressed to her lips in silence. Jyn is sleepy, confused, but lets her mother lead her out of the house she’d only just started to understand as home. Her father picks her up, swinging her high in strong arms, and she stares out at the speckled lights of the city as they move in darkness to a landing platform.

“Be very quiet, Jyn,” her mother whispers when she gasps, realizing she’s left her favorite doll behind, knowing somehow they are never coming back. She bites down on her lip as her father carries her into the ship, barely breathing as the silence envelops them even on the ship.

“We are going to find a new home,” her father says, sitting next to her and she nods, swinging her short legs. “You’ll like it, you’ll see.”

But that home burns too, licking with fire, and by then – by then, Jyn has lost more than a home.

+

She is curled up in the darkness of the pit, the image of her mother’s crumpled form playing over in her mind like a broken holovid, and counts her breaths.

She is eight years old.

(She does not cry.)

Eventually, the lamp flickers out, but she still doesn’t leave. Her father had told her not to leave. Her mother had taught her how to stay.

 _Hide_ , they had insisted. _Hide until we come for you._

Her mother is dead, her father is gone, but still, she stays. Her stomach bites with hunger, urging her out, but still, she hides.

(She must not cry.

She does not.)

+

When she is eleven, Saw brings her on a supply run. She had learned how to shoot a blaster in the caves outside town, first learning to aim and then how to aim blind, Saw tying a cover over her eyes. The weight of the blaster is familiar to her, if not comforting, and she trusts that Saw has taught her well.

The supply run goes badly and a stormtrooper blows the transport door open without warning, the rest of the soldiers gone. Jyn was supposed to wait – hide and wait – and let Saw know if anyone found the supplies.

She has not seen a stormtrooper since Lah’mu.

The ‘trooper lurches into the transport and fear floods her body, propelling her to the back of the transport where the weapons are hidden. His harsh commands mean nothing to her and when he grabs her ankle she yells in surprise, falling and grasping for anything to defend herself.

Her small hands find a blaster.

The shot she fires is clumsy but sufficient, scoring a hole in the stormtrooper’s shoulder. A pained cry emits from his transmitter and he swings out, his blaster knocking the side of her head. She bites down on a cry and shoots again, eyes wide.

(The ‘trooper crumples just like her mother.)

When she comms Saw, he asks if the ‘trooper got away.

“No,” she answers, her voice tremulous, and can almost see the great man’s head nodding.

“We’ll be there soon,” he says.

She waits, staring at the body by the transport, and does not cry.

+

Saw leaves her just the way he found her – alone, in the dark, waiting for someone to come back. This time, when she realizes nobody is coming, the realization bursts her lungs and she is trying to catch her breath, eyes screwed shut, and shuts out every thought of what comes next.

(She knows she’ll never see it coming.)

Finally, her breaths come steady, her eyes open, and she grips the blaster at her side.

There is no time for tears.

(There never is.)

+

Her body carries more scars than she counts, instinct saving her as much as skill, and she passes the years alone, isolated, and shut down. She exists, moment to moment, and if there was ever a part of her that knew how to grieve or fear, she has hidden it far away.

By the time she ends up in Wobani, she wouldn’t know how to find it if she wanted to.

(And why – why the hell – would she ever want to?)

+

Cassian steals into her life from the shadows, a mix of curiosity and an appeal from her past. Her hackles raise, her guard goes up, and she knows one thing for sure –

_Watch yourself with this one._

The moment she sees her father again – the moment she sees Saw again – all her training and watchfulness goes out the window. Every mistake that follows, she thinks, comes from that weakness, that softness that she had long since lost (every victory too). Her fathers pull at the cracks in her armor, try to remake her once more, and once then twice she finds herself on her knees, holding back sobs.

(She does not – she does not – )

Her cracks are wide open.

+

  
Her armor is gone and her past is here, having hunted her down to the end. She holds Cassian close, clinging tight as the death wave approaches, and takes a shaky breath, unsteady on her feet and uncertain of herself if nothing else.

( _Defiantly_ certain of everything else in the galaxy.)

A moment later, salt tears stain his shirt and she burrows close in relief, surprised at the galaxy and herself and that here, at the end of all things, of all places, there should be _peace_.

A moment later –

(A moment later – she is gone.)

_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladytharen](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you want to say hi!


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